“It isn’t going to be an easy matter to extradite Cocchi,” District Attorney Swann told the press. “All we have against him at present is an abandonment charge preferred against him by his wife. That is not an extraditable offence.” But it might, he added, generate “leads which will enable us to connect him up materially with the disappearance of Miss Cruger.”
Grace thought about going to Italy herself to look for Cocchi. She would have already been on a boat, she knew, in her younger days, but she felt fairly certain that Ruth herself was not there. There was also the small matter of the war. The Atlantic had already become uncertain terrain, masking the terrifying U-boats that slowly wound their way beneath the waters. Grace knew that if they didn’t find Ruth, then any case they had against Cocchi would fall apart completely. If that happened, Cocchi could live in Italy, free in the sunshine, for the rest of his life. Finding Cocchi didn’t solve the mystery.
A few days after Cocchi was found in Italy, Grace was in her office thinking about what to do next when she looked up to see Commissioner Woods himself at her door, hat in hand. She didn’t skip a beat.
“Alfredo Cocchi was the man we wanted,” Grace said, matter-of-factly. Some believed her, though a great many seemed to believe Cocchi’s explanation of things in the paper.
“Come now, Mrs. Humiston,” Woods said. “You have nothing on Cocchi and you know it. Would you expect a Grand Jury to indict him with only your evidence against him?”
Of course, Grace knew that the commissioner was right. In truth, there was still no physical evidence to connect Cocchi to anything. And the reports from Italy were threadbare at best—just that Cocchi had been found, living in plain sight, and the Italians refused to arrest him without a formal charge. All that meant even less when Woods phoned Grace the next morning.
“Well, we’ve found Ruth Cruger,” he said.
Grace stared into space, holding the black receiver in her hand. She was utterly shocked. She had been working for nearly a month under the secret premise that Ruth was long dead. She hadn’t told the family that, of course, not in so many words. They were still hopeful, but Grace had to be more practical. Could Ruth truly be alive? She felt surprised and happy at the same time.
“We found her, all right,” Woods said. “She’s alive and well in Mount Vernon, living with some man. She even admits who she is.”
Hearing Grace’s silence, Woods filled it with his own authority.
“Why don’t you and Mr. Cruger go up there to see her yourself this afternoon? I’ll send an officer with you.”
As they drove up to Mount Vernon together, Grace noticed how overjoyed Henry Cruger was. She had not met this version of him before, only perhaps imagined him as an inverse of the sad Henry she had seen every day. She couldn’t help feeling sheepish about demanding Cocchi’s arrest and for denying that Ruth had eloped. But she was quite happy to be wrong. The answer was always the simplest one, not a great conspiracy. Once they reached the rooming house at the address Woods had given them, Henry jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs to the apartment.
As Grace and the police officer walked the steps, they could hear the landlady talking with Henry.
“She’s gone,” the lady said. “She went to a hotel this morning.”
The woman gave them the number of Ruth’s new location. Grace wondered if she was running from her father or had just needed a new place. As Henry started down the stairs back to the car, Grace turned to the landlady and asked a question. Henry stopped to listen.
“Are you sure the girl is Ruth Cruger?”
“Positive,” the landlady replied.
“Did she admit it?”
“She didn’t exactly admit it. But I asked her, and she laughed.”
Henry didn’t say anything as he walked slowly to the car and stepped in. At the hotel, they found her almost immediately. Grace could see a slight resemblance, but it was only very faint around the eyes and mouth. It was not her. As they drove home in silence, Grace watched as the green trees of the mainland gave way to an island of boxes and blocks, almost toylike, though the closer they got, it became all too sharp and familiar.
Later that afternoon, Grace walked in the office and slowly sat in her chair. Her secretary told her that Kron had phoned.
“It must be something important,” she said. “He said for you to call him as soon as you got in.”
Grace sat down and called her detective. They connected easily.
“Mrs. Humiston,” Kron said. “I’ve got something on Cocchi.”
An hour later, Kron sat across from Grace at their customary hotel meeting place. Kron told her that he had uncovered new information that might be relevant. For one, Cocchi was no stranger to girls. Kron found that girls would often visit the motorcycle store and drink wine with Cocchi late into the night while he would sing Italian songs. “A Lothario,” Kron told Grace. “No pretty girl could pass by that store without him noticing and saying something in an attempt to get her to come inside.” There were also rumors that his shop had been a meeting place for all sorts of gamblers, racketeers, and loafers. But there was more.
“A former landlord reported that Cocchi,” Kron said, almost whispering, “under the name of Lou Marinaro, used to sneak girls into his repair shop for trysts with customers.” Kron discovered more assaults, but no one pressed charges because they feared a public scandal for their daughters.
Kron looked over his shoulder and dropped his voice even lower. He told Grace about someone he talked to who used to live on Cocchi’s street. Her name was Madame Mureal and she was a French actress who lived at 111 Manhattan Avenue with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Philippa. Their house was across the street from Cocchi’s motorcycle shop.
When Philippa’s bicycle broke one summer, her mother sent her to get it fixed by Cocchi. He was always smiling and seemed like a kind man, sometimes waving at them from across the dusty street. When Philippa came back, her bike not only fixed but wiped clean, the girl opened her hand to show her mother the rose that Cocchi had given her. On another occasion, he had given her a red box of candy. Philippa’s mother became worried and took to watching her daughter through the windows.
One day, Philippa came home more excited than usual. She told her mother that Cocchi had offered to take her riding in the sidecar of his shiny motorcycle. She asked her mother’s permission.
“I refused,” Madame Mureal said. “How thankful I am that I did.”
Another time, Philippa went over to see if Cocchi could attach a small motor to her bicycle. Cocchi wiped his hands on his rag, looked at her bike, and said he’d do it cheap. Just for her.
“Oh, really?” said Madame Mureal, when her daughter told her.